NASA sees unavoidable sea level rise ahead (Update)

August 26, 2015

The waters of the Indian Ocean lap on the shores of the low lying coraline island of Denis in the outer banks or the Seychelles islands on November 24, 2009

Sea levels are rising around the world, and the latest satellite data suggests that three feet (one meter) or more is unavoidable in the next 100-200 years, NASA scientists said Wednesday.

Ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are melting faster than ever, and oceans are warming and expanding much more rapidly than they have in years past.

Rising seas will have "profound impacts" around the world, said Michael Freilich, director of NASA's Earth Science Division.

"More than 150 million people, most of them in Asia, live within one meter of present sea level," he said.

Low-lying US states such as Florida are at risk of disappearing, as are some of the world's major cities such as Singapore and Tokyo.

"It may entirely eliminate some Pacific island nations," he said.

There is no doubt that global coastlines will look very different in years to come, US space agency experts told reporters on a conference call to discuss the latest data on sea level rise.

"Right now we have committed to probably more than three feet (one meter) of sea level rise, just based on the warming we have had so far," said Steve Nerem of the University of Colorado, Boulder and leader of NASA's sea level rise team.

"It will very likely get worse in the future," he told reporters.

"The biggest uncertainty is predicting how quickly the polar ice sheets will melt."

There is no doubt that global coastlines will look very different in years to come, US space agency experts told reporters on a conference call to discuss the latest data on sea level rise

Melting faster

The last major predictions were made in 2013 by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Based on a consensus of international researchers, the IPCC said global sea levels would likely rise from one to three feet by the end of the century.

Nerem said the latest satellite data suggests the higher end of that range is more likely.

NASA's predictions are based on a series of altimeters that measure ocean height from space. NASA and French space agency CNES began launching satellites to measure sea level in 1992.

"The instruments are so sensitive that if they were mounted on a commercial jetliner flying at 40,000 feet (1,200 meters) they could detect the bump caused by a dime lying flat on the ground," Freilich said.

The world's oceans have risen an average of almost three inches (7.6 cm) since 1992, with some locations rising more than nine inches (23 cm) due to natural variation, according to these instruments, known as Topex/Poseidon, and its successors, Jason-1 and Jason-2, NASA said.

The world's ocean have risen an average 7.6 cm since 1992

Much of the extra water is coming from melting ice and glaciers. Scientists are particularly concerned about the Greenland ice sheet, which shed an average of 303 gigatons of ice a year over the past decade.

Also, the Antarctic ice sheet has lost an average of 118 gigatons a year.

"One of the things we have learned is that the ice sheets are melting faster than we had previously suspected," said Josh Willis, oceanographer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"Sometime in the next 20 years we will probably see faster than average sea level rise, so we have to be prepared."

'More worried'

Scientists have never seen an ice sheet collapse, so the question of when sea levels will rise drastically is a major mystery.

This image obtained from NASA on November 14, 2012 shows a view of Sheldon Glacier with Mount Barre in the background, seen from Ryder Bay near Rothera Research Station, Adelaide Island, Antarctica

According to Tom Wagner, the cryosphere program scientist at NASA, the paleoclimate record shows that sea levels can rise as much as 10 feet (three meters) in a century or two, if the ice sheets fall apart rapidly.

"We're seeing evidence that the ice sheets are waking up, but we need to understand them better before we can say we're in a new era of rapid ice loss."

Eric Rignot, glaciologist at the University of California, Irvine, said that as the planet warms, there is no reason to expect that ice sheets will melt at the same pace as they did in the past. According to the laws of physics, they will deteriorate faster. And they already are.

"We are not talking about futuristic scenarios," said Rignot.

According to NASA's sea level rise team, it's pretty certain we are locked into at least three feet (one meter) of sea level rise, and probably more, however it is not clear when this will occur

"On a personal level, the data collected over the past few years make me more concerned about the decay of the ice sheets than I was in the past," he added.

"As we go on, I think we are a bit more worried about what is happening."

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Assuming they do rise that much, one to three feet in a century is easy to adjust for. The climate has been changing forever. We adjust. We go on. This is NOT a disaster.

"A 36-inch increase in sea levels would swamp every city on the East Coast of the United States, from Miami to Boston."

"Worldwide, approximately 100 million people live within three feet of sea level. Sea level rise associated with climate change could displace tens of millions of people in low-lying areas – especially in developing countries. Inhabitants of some small island countries that rest barely above the existing sea level are already abandoning their islands, some of the world's first climate change refugees."

Surprise! Sea levels continue to rise, just as they have for thousands of years since the earth warmed after the last ice age. These cooling and warming cycles have happened repeatedly for at least the last 700,000 years.

It could accelerate, but it could also slow. No one knows. Until we can explain the mechanisms that caused past glacial and warming periods, any predictions of future temperatures or sea levels are simply guesses based on short-term trends.

No problem. I did what the article author should have done; link to the real info.

However, objectively speaking, if you have the time (I don't), I'd be interested to know what the current seal level rise looks like compared to the Earth's history. specifically, what sea levels do as we enter and exit ice ages, and are we still exiting an ice age?

Assuming they do rise that much, one to three feet in a century is easy to adjust for. The climate has been changing forever. We adjust. We go on. This is NOT a disaster.

Note that at this point it doesn't seem likely that sea level rise by the end of the century will be less than 3 feet. Also note that sea level rise will not stop accelerating at the end of the century. Most of Florida will still disappear by 2200 even if it's still there in 2100. And other areas of the country/world will be similarly affected. That seems like something of a disaster, even if it's a slow moving disaster - especially since much of it can be avoided.

Yes, the climate is always changing, but it's humans that are known to be causing most of the current changes. All of the data I'm aware of indicates that it's cheaper to mitigate the changes rather than adapt, so if you don't care about Florida then maybe think about the economy. ;)

This will not matter if we all get nuked! Iran and North Korea do not care about us!

Or the sun goes supernova! Or an asteroid hits us! Or the ants take over! Or terrorists use bioweapons that kill us all! OMG, there's no point to anything. Life is meaningless! May as well quit my job and stop getting out of bed in the morning.

This will all (probably) happen if we don't invent something to mitigate this. But we will. Just realize that almost every technology was invented in 20th century. In 22nd century we'll be more than prepared. Some ground-breaking technologies are already lining up in 10 year horizon. In 2100 we'll probably have some technology to reduce CO2. Let's just continue slowly and naturally (in a market sense) to change our sources of energy. We don't need artificial fear-based rush decisions to force market to change to renewable. It will all play out. And I'm glad not much is changing. That way alarmists will be able to see how it will all work out. Better than other version when everything would be expensively implemented against free market and then when nothing happens we wouldn't be able to say if it was because of the changes or because it was never going to happen (and models were off).

200 years in future humans will probably live in far more technologically developed civilization and todays predictions of "unavoidable" sea rising will seem ridiculous by then. Just compare the the technology level of 1815 and 2015. And the development of technology is accelerating.

There is one observation which shows the doom and gloom crowd to be spreading funk. If they truly believe that global warming is unavoidable, then there is no need for all the costly ineffective interventions they keep promoting.

They keep promoting them because global warming is simply an excuse for redistribution of resources.

The promotion of socialism is the driving force behind the AGW scare tactics.

False dichotomy fallacy.Just because it's happening doesn't mean we can't affect how much it's happening. The damage caused by global warming does not rise linearly with the temperature.

They keep promoting them because global warming is simply an excuse for redistribution of resources.

Stupid argument fallacy.Because those who 'promote' this aren't the ones benefitting from it (because they themselves will also have to bear paying the extra tax money needed to mitigate the effects of global warming)

So why exactly would someone promote something that will cost them money - if they weren't absolutely convinced that it's supportwed by facts? Masochism?

The promotion of socialism is the driving force behind the AGW scare tactics.

The sooner you realize this has nothing to do with something as childish as politics (which scientists couldn't care less about) the sooner you will...grow a brain.

They said in 200 years. Who knows what will happen in 200 years. Don't hold your breath. Don't tell me its a foregone conclusion. We have never predicted anything 10 years in the future accurately so it would be insane to assume this is correct.

However, 200 years is a long time. In that time almost everything is rebuilt. Almost no buildings are 200 years old and they need massive work every 30 or 40 years usually. So, it is not that outrageous to consider this a cost of an owner spread over 100 year lifetime of the building. I don't see why we are paying for them.

There is another even more relevant thing. There is nothing we can do to stop it. Whether it is manmade or not the seas have been rising for centuries. Sooner or later these people on islands and building owners on prime ocean front property are going to have to face remodeling, lifting or even abandoning their properties. It's not a surprise. Seas rose 7 inches each of last 2 centuries.

The fact is we will hit 550 probably with CO2 no matter how fast or what we do with energy. If we are slow maybe we hit 800 or 700. If we are fast maybe we hit 550 or 600. The problem is that the extra 200ppm means about 0.3C at most probably less. Let's assume even 0.5C. That simply will not be that big a difference in rising water. Whatever we do we will get maybe 10 inches this century, maybe 18inches if the worst case scenarios emerge. By reducing temps we get maybe a couple inches less maybe. The fact is that everybody who is affected by sea levels will have to make adjustments no matter what we do and no matter who is at fault or not.

How expensive is lifting buildings? The mitigations will have to be done but in the scope of things these costs are minimal. What if things go much worse? Well, we should plan for that no matter what. Things happen all the time. Storms, floods, disasters.

antialias: the other thing you aren't considering is that the costs of global warming impacts are wildly improbable and inaccurate. Even the IPCC said that with temps < 2C that net net there would be benefit for mankind. One study came out (supplementing others that have been done for years) of 74 million deaths by the Lancet. It showed that 20 times as many deaths occur for 1C colder vs 1C warmer. We know that 15% more people die in the winter than the summer. We also know CO2 is a plant food source, that warmer temps increase growing regions, growing seasons and even introduce multiple growing seasons sometimes. Our medical skill improves exponentially and our ability to deal with natural disasters is growing phenomenally. In 1900-2000 deaths from natural disasters fell 98%. The predictions of gloom are wildly unsupported and stupid in many cases. In fact its very clear a warmer climate must be net positive. So, your words are: Why do something that has a cost?

gkam: 1 degree or even 2 is not going to change anyplace to a "tropical" region. Even if some do become more susceptible there is a huge difference between these diseases in rich modern cultures and sahara africa. And if that is not enough you have no idea where our medical care will be when this temp change may come about but it is wild speculation to include them. There are lots of things that are going to happen between now and 2100. Lots of diseases and new things. In 30 years the face of medicine will be dramatically different because we are growing our understanding at exponential rate. Like all previous prognostications that didn't take this into account you are almost guarenteed to be 100% wrong about what our problems will be in 20 years let alone a hundred because nobody has predicted the future with any accuracy or our problems down the road. Should we be looking at malaria and other tropical diseases? We are. We will have significant fixes for them.

john, I am not talking about Human diseases only. Alaskan birds started getting tropical diseases a few years ago. They have no defenses against those.

Thanks for the discussion.

Look up Chikengunya, and the other human diseases now traveling North. It is not just killer bees and fire ants of which we now have to deal, it will be a entire slew of problems. They will hit us while we try to find better places to grow food, since many of the present places are having environmental problems with climate.

The spread of tropical diseases and the change in growing areas can be catastrophic for us and the rest of life.

This is the same person that says the US sold nuclear secrets to North Korea and Pakistan.

Who says Mother Nature cares about life?

An anthropocentric world view gets really scared really easily. The cosmos continues on, oblivious to the fears that these monkeys with brains entertain.

Hello my monkey, a aaa aaahh you've been caught about lying wrt this before... as with everything else you lie about... you going to get some nasty rules spanks now.... from all my science friends, again :D

gkam: I also find your attitude disturbing. Africa dies from these diseases at like 1 million - 3 million/year. THey are killing the continent between them and HIV. If you are saying that all we need to do is cut CO2 levels and then let the africans suck it up and die by the millions then I think you are a crud because that is the implication that we won't have a cure we won't do anything. The idea these are unsolvable diseases like cancer is ludicrous. We may very well have dramatic improvements in cancer in 20-30 years. These diseases are going to be cake compared to them. It's ludicrous to think we are facing a huge horrible world of tropical diseases we can't do anything about in 80 years. I promise you the problems we have in 2080 or 2050 or 2030 are NONE of the problems you are talking about. 0.0% chance you are right. The pace of progress is exponential. We are building quantum computers. We are decoding the epigentic code. We are building materials beyond ...

a Warm welcome back gorilla, i see another day of tree swinging starting again, this one's going to be fun, already your socks, askdaddy, forestclowngnome ultron started off with ridiculing themselves, lots of 1s i see so far, beautiful..... more to come.... soon. :D

These predictions of negative stuff from global warming are so unbelievable as to be literally jokes.Obama says he fears for his kid because of asthma.There is no study anywhere anyhow that shows asthma has anything to do with increasing temperature or global warming.Seriously, you guys are worried about ocean-front property owners having to lift their buildings in 100 years?This is what you think we should be worried about?The IPCC said we would be so stupid that in 2080 when temps hit the 2C which it won't get even close that we will forget to move our farming to more northern climates.So we will suffer food decline.Thats the stupidest thing and it has nothing to do with global warming.It has to do with stupidity and politics.If it warms vast growing areas will open up under cold land.The chances food supply would decline in 2080 or 2180 is stupid.We have genetic understanding.We have ability to manipulate.CO2 is what plants are made of.None of these things are going to happen

Gkam: Nobody knows the future and anybody who is making predictions like that is stupid and not to be believed. It has never been done EVER. If it had we'd know about it. We would be going he was prescient or she was amazing predicting X or Y. The government is incredibly inept at predicting the future. Scientists get it wrong all the time. Anybody who is predicting like that is stupid because there is no way to know how the combination of technology, economics, politics will play out especially today when they are moving at exponential rates. Most of these studies are being done by young scientists barely out of school who have no actual experience in how things change, what the factors that could affect what they predict. They are not equipped to make long term predictions of consequences. They're just saying, you know if you raise temps like the climate models say by 3C then this plant might die out because then this other species will dominate bla bla bla

No, john, it is much more professional than that. Maybe you could type in climate change and stuff like pentagon. See what their scientists say. Or the UN, or any other serious and legitimate group or organization or topic. No politics or corporate stuff on any side.

Let's project some things we know are very likely to happen. The US in 1989 had a 7.2 earthquake in the bay area. 68 people died. Iran had an earthquake 5.0 earthquake 5 years later and 50,000 people died. Storm kills 240,000 people in Asia that would kill maybe a dozen people in a country such as the US. We have made astounding improvements in building codes, response quickness. When the storm hit New Orleans 1,000 people died. However, if it had been 100 years earlier 100,000 would have died easily. France had a heat wave in 1998 that killed 15,000 people. 3 years later a worse heat wave hit and 10 people died. Natural disaster improvements are easy to fix. It would be crazy to assume that in 50 years almost every country will have made dramatic improvements in natural disaster readiness. The third world has been making enormous progress with China leading the way. They have done tremendous things to reduce what was very massive natural disaster losses. By 2100 ...

I admit my biggest concern is animals. I really don't believe that there will be mass extinctions from a couple degrees considering 5,000 years ago it was as warm and there were no mass extinctions. Yes, they are more in danger and yes that is because of man. Man over the last 1,000 years has been brutal to nature and megafauna in particular. Almost all extinctions of these happened in the past few hundred years or thousand as man raped the countryside and killed crazily. I realize many think we are doing so today but there is progress and I believe this is the area that needs the most attention - additional attention not becuase of global warming but simply because we are regardless of global warming having a major impact on wildlife. We need to drastically improve and figure out how to live with our neighbors on this planet. Global warming is a distraction. We should be focused on that and the oceans.

We also should realize that this is complicated. There is a natural extinction process that is good. We used to stop all wildfires. We now let some go because the process of fire is necessary for some species and for some natural processes. There are somewhere around 20million species on the planet. Nobody knows exactly and nobody knows the normal creation rate or extinction rate. We don't know if we are above or below the normal. We don't know what is good or bad. There is much evidence that extinction encourages evolution. Are we pro-evolution or anti-evolution? Conservative means resistant to change. By definition people who are anti-evolution are seeking to maintain things like the temperature the same because they resist all change thinking all change is bad. That is bogus and unproven. Some change will happen because we simply are not in control so change will happen. We simply are too stupid to know how much change is good or even how much is happening.

gkam: what i said holds. These studies come out daily about impacts. They are incredibly unbelievable poor poor science. None of them is remotely believable. I see them constantly. If you think these things have any credibility I think you are incredibly naive. I have made predictions about what I think will be issues to concern us and they are vastly more believable than these studies. What about genetic manipulation? What about nano-machines gone awry? What about distribution of wealth continuing to widen and more unemployment than we can ever solve? What about wackos with access to dangerous chemicals, nano-robots or viruses? What about machine intelligence beyond many humans? What about losing contact with other humans withdrawing into the cloud? What about asteroid strike? There are a lot of things to worry about. Not some graduate students idea that if temps rise 3C in 100 years some plant might go extinct or even ocranfront property owners plight

There are a lot of things to worry about. Not some graduate students idea that if temps rise 3C in 100 years some plant might go extinct or even ocranfront property owners plight

Skippy, you ever seen the mangrove swamp disappear right before your eyes? I have been watching the Louisiana wetlands disappear for over thirty years me. At the rate of more than a few football field per hour, without a let-up. It ain't pretty, it ain't healthy and it is ALL bad.

We are losing whole towns of the Cajuns to the sea water, and when the peoples move away we lose more of our culture, our history. The buffer from the big storms like Katrina should be important to you even if you don't live here, because you going to pay too, not as much as us, but you are going to pay.

We are losing whole towns of the Cajuns to the sea water, and when the peoples move away we lose more of our culture, our history. The buffer from the big storms like Katrina should be important to you even if you don't live here, because you going to pay too, not as much as us, but you are going to pay.

Dear Earth,

I don't much care for what happens to you, or your parasites. I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do. Nothing personal.

It's appropriate you repeatedly use "incredible" and "stupid" considering how incredibly stupid you are.

George, how many accounts do you have here?

And, what a gay way to express yourself. It fits, I guess, considering you link people to gay websites.

Lol donglish himself talking about multiple accounts, This monkey has about 8 accounts in which he regularly engages puppet conversations with including jeffy, antigoracle,willieward, shootist, waterprophet, john mathon to name a few, he continually creates new ones too,

All he does with his life is comment BS on physorg, and are incompetent when required to prove evidence, always.. :D c'mon monkey, remember a firm grip on the branch makes for a better swing ;)

@denglish "I wonder how the earth survived the PH level between 1910 and 1920."

The problem with the graph you have linked is that there is no presentation of the range of uncertainties. pH is obtained by taking samples from a various points around the globe and if the sampling is carried out repeatedly, there will be a range of values measured. The global average pH is statistically constructed from sample measurements and must therefore have an uncertainty associated with it.

I'd like to know whether or not the current ocean changes are within the bounds of natural variance over a time scale that is earth-significant. Uncertainty notwithstanding, I believe it is.

Not that it really matters though. the person claiming it also says the US sold nuclear secrets to N Korea and Pakistan, and lies about a myriad of real life things in order to gain credibility here; which is quickly blown to smithereens.

This article is about the rise in sea level, and the current rise is well within the bounds of natural variance. We can be terrified, cripple our economies, and re-distribute wealth to our heart's content, and will never be able to stop the earth's machinations.

Back to rise of the sea level and wondering if its out of the ordinary, we find this:

Evidently what we are seeing is nothing compared to the Holocene Transgression (where, coincidentally, *huge* ice sheets were waning):https://wattsupwi...13-3.png

So, while yes, the sea level is rising, it is nothing out of the ordinary. It will go down again when the next ice age comes.

Seems to me stability is the exception to the rule when it comes to climate, yet because of our increased observational capacity, we note change and deem it unacceptable with little to no context in regards to the bigger (historical) picture.

@denglish: the current rate of increase of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere seems to be faster than any time in the last 300 million years. Ergo rate of CO2 dissolution should be faster now than any other time in that period as well.

The rise in the ice-melt component of sea level as a response to global warming has an exponential rate, with the doubling time every 10-40 years. This means that, with a doubling rate of say 40 years, and given the current rise in sea level due to melting ice is 1.5 mm/year, in 120 years time the sea level rise due to melting ice should be around 12 mm per year, which is higher than the rate on your graph. A period of 120 years is very short in geological time.

@denglish:"We can be terrified, cripple our economies, and re-distribute wealth to our heart's content, and will never be able to stop the earth's machinations."

Shouldn't the cold hard facts regarding climate science have infinitely more importance than the possible impacts climate mitigation strategies may have on economy or wealth or someone's sensibilities?

Shouldn't the cold hard facts regarding climate science have infinitely more importance than the possible impacts climate mitigation strategies may have on economy or wealth or someone's sensibilities?

Absolutely. The cold hard facts are yet to be had. Once had, we may find out that we don't have enough impact on the climate to make it economically feasible to attack it.

If we do affect it, shutting down energy that enables cleaner alternatives isn't wise either.

Sensibilities, not so much. Ethics are ethics.

What do you think is causing the long-term global warming that is currently occurring?

Aside from being a symptom of the Earth's well known cyclic variations, I have no idea. I am not a climatologist.

Regarding sea level rise, how natural is the acceleration rate do you think?

For being on the tail end of the exit of an ice age, I'll hazard a guess that its fairly natural.

@denglish: "Aside from being a symptom of the Earth's well known cyclic variations, I have no idea."ok, so you accept global warming is occurring, and you say it has purely natural causes. So, if global warming is occurring, e.g. as evidenced by the accumulation of thermal energy in the hydrosphere, why is the upper stratosphere/mesosphere cooling? Is this "natural" do you think?

"For being on the tail end of the exit of an ice age, I'll hazard a guess that its fairly natural."I presume you mean interglacial not ice age? Milankovitch forcing should be decreasing very slowly (resulting -0.01 C/decade average global temp change) so how it would be causing accelerating ice-melt?

"For being on the tail end of the exit of an ice age, I'll hazard a guess that its fairly natural."I presume you mean interglacial not ice age? Milankovitch forcing should be decreasing very slowly (resulting -0.01 C/decade average global temp change) so how it would be causing accelerating ice-melt?

I understand denglish is trying to learn things now. He might be interested in discovering that the earth had been cooling for the last ~4000 years until recently when CO2 levels increased to a point where they started to dominate the natural climate drivers (http://www.realcl...=desktop ).

@denglish:"I'm not convinced we're measuring the Ocean accurately enough to know conclusively what it is doing. We had to (controversially) adjust the numbers just this year."

There are several reasons why the ocean is believed to be heating. If you don't trust the statistical methods used to calculate global average temperatures of the oceans, then you can look at sea level rise. Sea level rise is occurring for two reasons: the accumulation of thermal energy directly into the ocean which causes thermal expansion, i.e. the volume of the ocean to increase, and the accumulation of thermal energy in the cryosphere, resulting in the melting of ice. The contribution of each is about the same, 1.5mm/year. There is no other conceivable reason why ocean sea level would be rising.

Upper stratosphere/ mesosphere cooling qualitatively suggests GW is being caused by GHGs. It effectively rules out increasing solar irradiance as the cause, which could be caused by factors like increasing brightness of the sun or changes in earth's orbital configurations - increasing solar irradiance would cause the upper stratosphere/mesosphere to warm.

Upper stratosphere/mesosphere cooling is easily explained by increasing CO2 concentration: the troposphere is increasingly opaque at the CO2 absorbance spectrum frequencies, so more CO2 spectra is being reradiated, post-absorption by a CO2 molecule, downwards (i.e. more scattering is occurring). Extra CO2 in the upper stratosphere/mesosphere is causing the emission rates of CO2 spectrum to increase. Lack of replenishment of CO2 spectra from below causes a depletion of CO2 spectra in upper stratosphere, hence cooling. There's no compelling alternate explanation for this.

The paleoclimatic record shows that climate changes in the past are strongly correlated with Milankovitch cycles. This means that generally, global climate change historically has been caused by changes in earth's orbital configurations. What is also observed in the CO2 records is that increases in CO2 are caused by interglacial warming, which makes sense: oceans degas some CO2 as they warm. However, changes in CO2 follow changes in temperature by about 600 to 1000 years after changes in temperature. What is also observed is an asymmetry in the warming profile: warming occurs relatively rapidly and cooling is very slow due to GH feedback.

This whole warming mechanism is not responsible for the current period of global warming.

@denglish: the "whole warming mechanism" I mention specifically refers to Milankovitch warming, i.e. warming due to changes in orbital configurations which lead to increased solar irradiance. Historically there is an occasion when a burst of GHGs, perhaps methane, was released without large Milankovitch warming first: this is called the PETM (~55 million years ago) and studies of this event do indicate that GW was induced by increases of GHGs in the atmosphere.

Product: Satellite altimeters measure ocean height from space.Objective: Must. Prove. Anthropogenic. Planetary. Catastrophe.Data: Excellent global coverage, superior in every way to tidal gauges.Result: Shows actionable amount of (historically ongoing) sea level rise.The Plan: Gloat about this technology, promote scenarios where short people handcuffed to the shore will drown by 2150.

Product: Satellite measure of radiance at various wavelengths, from which lower troposphere temperature is inferred.Objective: Must. Prove. Anthropogenic. Planetary. Catastrophe.Data: Excellent global coverage, few discrete instruments and well-documented orbital characteristics for high accuracy and smooth framework for making corrective adjustment.Result: Uh oh. Global temp looks bleak. Not enough warming for panic!The Plan: Mention only in passing, weigh surface temps much more heavily, partner with NOAA and adjust to cool the past.

@denglish: "Are humans responsible for warming to the point where crippling our economies and morals is justified."

Qualitatively we can conclude that human activity is playing a significant role in causing global warming. To get a quantitative estimation of the role of humans one needs to use GCM simulations, and these indicate that there's a >95% chance that human activity is the cause.

A qualitative argument is as follows: global warming is occurring (e.g. as sea level rise indicates). Upper stratosphere cooling (and other "GHG fingerprints") indicates GHGs are significantly responsible. Outgoing Longwave Radiation measurements by satellites indicate that (i) CO2 spectrum brightness has decreased over the last few decades, hence stratosphere cooling is caused by CO2 and (ii) there is less outgoing energy than incoming energy, a direct confirmation that GW is occurring.

(Continued) Isotope profile studies of the carbon in the CO2 in the atmosphere indicate that accumulating CO2 is likely from fossil fuel combustion. In addition O2 is reducing in concentration at a rate consistent with the stoichiometric amount expected for combustion with fossil fuels. Increasing CO2 concentration is also consistent with global carbon accounting calculations based on industry figures.

So there are compelling quantitative reasons to believe human activity is playing a significant role in the global warming currently occurring.

"The most important bias globally was the modification in measured sea surface temperatures associated with the change from ships throwing a bucket over the side, bringing some ocean water on deck, and putting a thermometer in it, to reading the thermometer in the engine coolant water intake. The bucket readings used early in the record were cooler than engine intake observations so the early data have been adjusted warmer to remove that bias.This makes global temperatures indicate less warming than the raw data."Not doing very well are you?Now there's a surprise from a denier.

There is no doubt that there was a great flood in the past. Biblical records state that the waters receded after 150 days, so the entire Earth could not have been covered, because then the waters would have nowhere to recede to. Enki tells Endubsar that, "the great deluge was destined to happen." It probably happened because a great ice sheet was predicted to collapse, and the "sons of god" made it happen, to avoid being caught off guard. Climate change is inevitable, the Earth keeps warming up to, and cooling down from ice ages, which are in sync with the cycles of precession. Some day there will be no more ice at the north pole, and then at some point it will start cooling down again globally and we will progress toward another ice age.

There have been many ancient cities that have been discovered submerged under water for tens of thousands of years.

If, by that you mean, there is absolutely no evidence for the biblical flood of Noah, but there have been regular floods in the past, then you're correct.

Biblical records state that the waters receded...

Oh good gravy (pardon my french).

Climate change is inevitable, the Earth keeps warming up to, and cooling down from ice ages, which are in sync with the cycles of precession.

Isn't it interesting, though, that that is no longer true? If the warming and cooling were still in sync with orbital changes, we would still be cooling as we were for the last ~4000 years. But, as has been pointed out many, many times, the natural drivers of the climate are currently overpowered by the increased energy in the climate due to the elevated levels of CO2.

If, by that you mean, there is absolutely no evidence for the biblical flood of Noah, but there have been regular floods in the past, then you're correct.

If you don't want there to be evidence for Noah's flood then you'll find every kind of excuse not to see it.I've read some scientist saying something akin to the following "these burials and fossilization have been caused by mega LOCAL floods around the globe...." - the person recognizes that it requires mega flooding to sweep up and bury huge dinos under tons of sediment over such a widespread area. Problem is that it happened around the world, seemingly all at the same time, and the areas we're talking about measure in the 100s of thousands of square kilometers. On every continent you find huge chasms cut into the ground, otherwise known as canyons, e.g. the Grand Canyon, the Fish River canyon, the Blyde River canyon etc.So, yes, there's no evidence of Noah's flood whatsoever as long as you keep your blinkers on.

it requires mega flooding to sweep up and bury huge dinos under tons of sediment over such a widespread area.

On every continent you find huge chasms cut into the ground, otherwise known as canyons, e.g. the Grand Canyon,...

There's extensive evidence that the Grand Canyon is ~6 million years old. Dinosaurs died out long before that. So, yes, there's no evidence that the bible (a book that supports prostitution, abortion, incest, and slavery, and that claims god is an evil being) is a work of fiction, as long as you keep your blinkers on.

Not to say the bible is all bad. One of the things it does is prove, without question, that morals change with time and society. This shows that looking to a ~2000 year old book for answers to moral questions is a waste of time.